


You're the Only Reason I Stay (This Coward's Melee)

by ambitiousbutrubbish



Series: Sing While We Go Up in Flames [1]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: (part one of a Reincarnation AU that will get much better), Angst, Canon Era, Gen, M/M, Ugly!Grantaire, and also Enjolras' face but that's a given, angst angst angst, ie. unhealthy unrequited obsessive and full of self-loathing and veneration, nothing here is beautiful except that they die holding hands, so Canon Era Enjolras/Grantaire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-25
Updated: 2014-11-25
Packaged: 2018-02-26 22:42:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2669102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambitiousbutrubbish/pseuds/ambitiousbutrubbish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras had curled back his lip and snarled his fury and Grantaire would have fallen on his knees right there, would have carved out his own heart and given it as an offering if he thought Enjolras would take it, rather than scorn him.</p><p>Apollo is the god of the sun. Apollo is the god light and truth and music and poetry. Apollo is the god of plagues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You're the Only Reason I Stay (This Coward's Melee)

**Author's Note:**

> The way Grantaire sees himself is Not Healthy. The way Grantaire sees Enjolras is Not Healthy. Seriously, this is not the way you should think about another person that you actually personally know. I mean, it’s great to explore in fic but don’t ever think this kind of...deification or veneration is the way you should ever look at a romantic partner. I am not in any way advocating it as part of a healthy relationship. I can not stress this enough. If you have issues with obsessional, unhealthy, (almost entirely) unrequited relationships, please, I advise you to, at the very least, exercise caution.
> 
> Basically, that is to say, this is canon-era e/R, where Grantaire pines unhealthily and obsessively and to the destruction of everything else, where he literally _has to ask Enjolras to die_ and Enjolras does not return, or at the very least does not notice or acknowledge those feelings, right until the end where Enjolras smiles at Grantaire and then _they die together holding hands and Grantaire collapses at Enjolras’ feet and_ **OH MY GOD**. 
> 
> Gratuitous use of commas and run-on sentences and descriptive language.

Grantaire calls him Apollo, because Apollo is the god of light, the sun and truth, the patron defender of herds and flocks. Enjolras may have set his sights to levels loftier than cattle or sheep, but he still desires to protect the masses, to elevate those who are too afraid to rise up themselves, to spread hope for the future.

Enjolras shines bright like the sun, and he’s burned himself onto Grantaire’s retinas just the same. When he closes his eyes he sees him, standing on a table at the Musain with his head and shoulders thrown back, candlelight casting his delicate features into sharp relief as he rages against the sky, against anyone who claims their right to subjugate the people. His passion is undeniable, his charisma evident in the way his friends turn to watch him in rapt attention, nodding along shamelessly to talk of treason and revolution where anyone could happen upon them. From the first moment Grantaire saw Enjolras he was ruined, his life laid out before him, bare and barren and dark but for the patches of light and heat Enjolras exudes that has burned away anything else.

For Apollo is just as much the god of plagues; of a righteous vengeance that demands satisfaction, of terror and loss and pain.

Grantaire calls him Apollo, but only in his head, only ever in his head where he’s allowed to prostrate himself down at Enjolras’ feet and worship him like the god taken human form that he is. He only says it out loud once, on a night of musing and speeches and Grantaire had been drunk enough to loosen his tongue but not so drunk as to forget the look of absolute disgust that passed over Enjolras’ face at the allusion, a hatred deeper even than the normal looks of despair Enjolras sends his way, when he had curled back his lip and snarled his fury and Grantaire would have fallen on his knees right there, would have carved out his own heart and given it as an offering if he thought Enjolras would take it, rather than scorn him. Enjolras doesn’t want to be worshiped, he only wants all people to be equal and free, but Grantaire doesn’t know any other way to be. Not anymore

\--------------------

It’s not that Enjolras can not be friendly. To the contrary, it is not due to his speeches and ideals that his friends gathered around him in the first place. He may articulate their greatest desires for a free France, he may have organised their social group into a political one and pushed their beliefs into radical action, but they are all friends, first and foremost. Where his light, like a fire burning in the darkness, calls to Grantaire like a moth to a flame - destructive, consuming, burning everything else away - the others gather around him for the genuine warmth it provides. 

Enjolras cares so deeply about everything. He can craft his words in ways that would make a grown man cry (has made Grantaire cry, more than once, when he’s alone in his room), and his friends will follow him to their deaths. Grantaire knows it like he knows nothing else, with a certainty that he reserves only for his belief in the essential evilness and apathy of mankind, or for Enjolras himself. But Enjolras is much happier to let Combeferre lead their meetings, have Courfeyrac be their public face to the masses. As much as the others may whisper it among themselves, Enjolras does not consider himself the leader of Les Amis de l’ABC. He believes completely in the triumvirate. He nurtures the passions in his friends, and encourages them to take action, and when they gather as a group, he spends most of their time together sitting quietly and listening to his friends talk, smiling at their antics. He nurses a glass of wine and holds asides with Combeferre and Courfeyrac, or he discusses literature and politics with Feuilly. When Jehan is in his dark moods, he lets him lay his head on his lap and recite him poetry. He is always the last to leave their meeting places, just so he knows that everyone has left safely, and when Gavroche sneaks into their meetings, he speaks to him just as he would anyone else, and doesn’t ruffle his hair like the rest of them do. Grantaire would find the hero-crush the boy develops on him as a result sweet, if he didn’t recognise the way that it’s going to get him killed doing something stupid and reckless to prove himself to Enjolras, just as his own feelings will one day.

The truth is that Enjolras loves his friends, completely and unreservedly. Others may look at him and see only the stone-faced revolutionary and Grantaire knows that that is deliberate, it’s what he wants people to see, but truthfully Enjolras is warm and kind and happier to speak of his friend’s accomplishments than his own.

But that is not always so. Passion is not always positive, and Enjolras’ words are not always inspiring. He can be cruel. Fire can burn, and Enjolras can be ice, too, just as easily. Those that liken him to stone, to a statue, have not come to the analogy on baseless assumptions. He is uncompromising. When he speaks of the government and the monarchy the flames in his eyes could set Paris ablaze (and he plans to let it, to let the city burn to the ground if that is what it takes to raise the Republic. He believes in Robespierre and Rousseau and he would go as far as either of them, if he felt he had to), and his fury flushes his cheeks red and Grantaire has never sees anything that compares in the slightest to the avenging angel with his golden curls framing his face like a halo.

Grantaire baits him in meetings, just so that Enjolras will direct some of that passion at him, just so that he will keep talking and Grantaire can keep listening. When he riles him up, Enjolras becomes icy, that characteristic warmth for his friends and for the people, lost to the ice that flows suddenly through his veins and Grantaire loves it, even though it hurts him, even though Enjolras spits harsh words and dismisses him as good for nothing, because he thinks of that ice as belonging only to him.

He doesn’t understand why Enjolras doesn’t try harder to send him away. Grantaire angers him purposefully. He doesn’t particularly share his political leanings (or, he does, but he thinks it’s useless), and he is vocal of the fact. He is disrespectful of what he stands for, how he defines himself, and he is unapologetic about it. Truthfully, Enjolras tells him to leave every meeting, but he never makes him. Grantaire has friends among Les Amis, yes. He drinks with them, they sing songs together and flirt with girls together, but they are only friends, and they all look to Enjolras as their leader. If he told them to make Grantaire leave, they would. But he doesn’t, he tolerates his presence, and Grantaire does not understand why. 

He knows what he looks like. He is aware of the scars and the potmarks and the yellowed teeth, the shape of his nose and face, his ears which speak of a past in boxing before the drink and the extra weight he carries around his middle. He knows that he does not bathe as often as he should, that he smells of alcohol and his unkempt home and that he desperately needs at hair cut. He knows that his ugly and angry thoughts are reflected on his face. Women shy away from him, they steer their children in a wide birth around him. His friends stay with him. They do not seem to care what he looks like or smells like; rather they enjoy his words (and he is good with words, as eloquent as Enjolras, although more poetic, when he tires to be; his schooling as respected as any of their own, before he abandoned it, as he abandons everything) and his songs and his companionship and when they look into his eyes they say that he is gentle, that he is sweet (and they do not say that it is because he is looking at Enjolras but they must know, they can’t not, only Enjolras doesn’t) and Grantaire knows that they think that they are speaking the truth. But he has been called “impossible” before - and worse - as if looking upon him was physically painful.

Grantaire does not understand why Enjolras doesn’t just send him away.

He doesn’t approach Enjolras. When they speak, it is only from across the Musain or the Corinthe, baited words cast out and barbed ones being returned. He doesn’t go near Enjolras because Enjolras is a god - perfect, untouched, unsullied - and Grantaire would only taint him if he were to come too close.

Something so ugly should never be allowed to be near something so fair.

But Grantaire stays, even though he knows that it will only hurt him, that he will only bring Enjolras down, because he only feels complete, only feels real, with Enjolras’ light illuminating the dark corners of his mind.

\--------------------

Grantaire does not speak up at meetings, except to mock or to jest. Around his friends, he speaks more freely, and when drinking with Joly and Bossuet he can be trusted to talk for hours about next to nothing, even in defiance of Enjolras with enough alcohol and enough cruel words slung his way that night, as long as he is able to lend his speech a poetic lilt to take the sting from them. But in addressing Enjolras, no matter the setting, he does not allow himself to be serious, to give suggestions that may be seen as helpful or meaningful, because his words, his person, do not deserve to be associated with Enjolras and his passion. 

All this is why he surprises even himself when he makes the offer to go to the Barriere du Maine and speak on behalf of the Revolution to the men who gather there. He has never offered himself to the cause before, at least not in his words (his heart, though, has belonged to Enjolras from the moment he had seen him, and it would force him to follow the man anywhere, even to death. Especially to death), but the time has come for action, and Enjolras is assessing his supporters, gathering his Revolutionaries around him, and he is one lieutenant short.

And so Grantaire offers himself for the task, proclaims his belief in Enjolras, his devotion; offers to fall at his feet and shine his boots if he must, to get Enjolras to look at him as someone useful, begs him for his trust. And Enjolras...

Enjolras gives it to him.

Grantaire is giddy of it, flushed with pride and faith that Enjolras would entrust something to him, some part of his Revolution to Grantaire. He is so breathless with it - with the idea that perhaps Enjolras does not despise him, does not despair of him, for the one time that Grantaire had asked something of him, his trust, Enjolras had granted it - that he is almost halfway to his destination before he thinks of the way that he had leaned near him just before he had departed, how he had whispered “be easy” almost directly into his ear. 

His stomach drops at the memory, bile rises in his throat and his elation, growing like a burst of sunlight in his chest, pops before it has a chance to take root, replaced instead with a sickness, and a terrible dread. He had come so close to Enjolras, had smelt the remnants of the sunlight in his hair and the cleanness of his skin. Enjolras’ breath may well have ruffled his hair (if it did not hang so limp from its unwashed state), just as he knows his did Enjolras’, and he is sure, then, that with his words, with that breath, he released also the blackness of his soul onto the purity of Enjolras’ being. He has tainted him, corrupted him, by getting so close. He has done was he had always sworn not to do, could never bear to do. The joy of Enjolras’ trust turns to ashes in his mouth, because it can only mean that Grantaire has tried to pull something so beautiful into the mud with the rest of them.

He thinks of turning back, of slinking away to his rooms and hiding until everything is over, until he dies there and he can hurt no one else, but he spies a small café not far ahead of him, and he knows they serve absinth there and ask no questions of the buyer.

He is drunk before he reaches the Barriere du Maine.

There is no other way this could have gone.

\--------------------

He is jealous of the way Enjolras is with Combeferre and Courfeyrac, though he has no right to be. They are as close as Joly and Bossuet; in a different manner, although no less essential to each other’s existence. They are best friends. They complete one another. A triangle, the most structurally sound of shapes, that carries the rest of Les Amis and keeps them together. There is no one that could come between them, no relationship that would not pale in the face of the three of them joined, and Grantaire knows this and does not begrudge them for it. But still, he is jealous.

Enjolras had been glaring at him, berating him for his failure at the Barriere du Maine to such an extent that the other Amis had buried their faces in their wine glasses, too nervous to speak, but too uncomfortable to watch the scene play out before them. But then Combeferre and Courfeyrac had entered, held up at some place or another, and Combeferre had placed his hand on Enjolras’ arm. Almost immediately he had turned from his task of verbal emasculation to ask about there whereabouts, no hint of his pervious ire in his voice.

And that is what makes Grantaire cry. He had disappointed Enjolras, that is true, but he does that daily. Enjolras had yelled at him, true again, but he was more than used to that; he craved the attention, to be the focus of all of Enjolras’ passion. But Enjolras had dismissed him, tucked away his fury as if it was nothing more than routine, nothing more than something he did during the day, as simple and as meaningless as cleaning his teeth or brushing his hair. Grantaire was so inconsequential to Enjolras that not even his anger, usually all-consuming, could keep his focus on him. 

Grantaire realises now why Enjolras had never truly sent him away. He had wanted to help Grantaire, to make him see the world Les Amis were fighting for, to light the flame of passion and action within him that he did for all of their friends. He had wanted Grantaire to blaze as brightly as any of them. He does not know that he does so simply by his presence (although how he can not, Grantaire does not understand), that being around Enjolras sets Grantaire aflame, his words pouring out of him like they haven’t since before he first touched alcohol, his life given meaning and direction, his mind given focus once more, dreaming of the world Enjolras promises will arise from the ruins of the old, his desperate desire for Enjolras to be right, even though his words speak of the opposite. And now Enjolras believes Grantaire to be beyond reach, beyond saving, nothing to spend his time on, and Grantaire wants to drink until he can no longer feel a thing.

Enjolras is Apollo and he is a god. Even with as much wine as he consumes with a dedication that could make it seem an offering, Grantaire can not cast himself as Dionysus along side of him. For while Dionysus loved wine and grapes, it was not all he was. He was ecstasy and he was passion, he was dancing unashamed in the moonlight and embracing life, and death, for all that they are and Grantaire, with his alcohol and his table in the corner and his lamentations, he is none of these things. Yes, he can get as rowdy as the rest of them, he too can sing and flirt and laugh, but he does these things because they are expected of him, not because he feels them. That passion, that ecstasy, that is all Enjolras as well. Dionysus and Apollo were brothers, as different as they were complementary, and Grantaire gets the feeling that perhaps Enjolras is both of them; someone utterly complete.

Grantaire is Icarus. Not a god, not an immortal, just a man who flew to close to the sun and fell to his death in the dark, crushing ocean for his recklessness and his desire.

He watches Enjolras talk with Combeferre and Courfeyrac, watches them touch each other so casually and familiarly, laugh over wine and the deeds of the day, and he is jealous. No matter that Joly and Bossuet come over to dry his tears and murmur that he does not deserve Enjolras’ rage, that Enjolras is simply nervous for the fast approaching time of action.

Enjolras does not even notice his tears.

\--------------------

Apollo is the god of light, the sun and truth, the patron defender of herds and flocks. And he is also the god of plagues, the bringer of death.

Everyone forgets this, except Grantaire.

He loves Enjolras best when he is terrible, because that is when he’s all his.

(Even though it hurts him. Even though it makes him feel less of a man, less of a _human_ every time Enjolras berates him. But maybe that is what he needs, what he deserves, for daring to impose himself into Enjolras’ life. Grantaire will take what he can get, he will sustain himself on any attention Enjolras sends his way, but when Enjolras tells him to leave the barricade, to not disgrace their Revolution with his presence, Grantaire lays his head on the table and hopes that his death will come quickly while he sleeps, to free himself from the pain Enjolras causes him.)

\--------------------

Grantaire never expected to wake up. Frankly, when he fell asleep, he never wanted to wake up. But silence falls over the barricade and the world holds her breath over the blood that has been spilled this day and the sacrifice that is yet to be made and Grantaire’s eyes shoot open and awareness comes to him instantly, an awareness that he has not had for many years.

And he is glad that it does.

The Revolution is lost, he knew that before it even began; the bodies of his friends are only the final proof, fallen like puppets with their strings cut, where once there had been laughter and excitement and hope.

Enjolras stands alone, defiant before the National Guard who are hesitating to take the final shot. Grantaire almost laughs, then. If anyone could stave off his own execution by force of will, surrounded by the blood and gunsmoke of his rebellion, it would be Enjolras. But he stands alone, and Grantaire can not give the laugh sound, because everything about the tableau before him is profoundly wrong, and not due only to the deaths of his friends.

Enjolras should never be alone. Not he, who loves the people so completely, who surrounds himself with friends every day, who bought together a group to change the world for the better, a world where man and woman would live as one. Not Enjolras, who dedicated his life’s blood to the cause, to humanity.

Enjolras deserves to be surrounded by people, to listen to them talk, to revel in their passion and their freedom.

He does not deserve to die alone.

Grantaire leaps to his feet. It never occurs to him to try and escape. 

He declares himself for the Republic and marches past the Guardsmen to take his place beside Enjolras. He has never been more steady, more sure.

He asks Enjolras’ permission to stand with him, to die with him.

Enjolras smiles and him and reaches out to take his hand. He laces their fingers together and squeezes slightly, and Grantaire can feel the heat almost radiating off Enjolras, as if the fire that runs through his veins is real.

He is not afraid. 

He is right.

Grantaire is sure that he dies before the bullet ever finds him.

**Author's Note:**

> _Whoops??_
> 
> (The next one will be much nicer I promise)
> 
> Title from [Codename: Raven](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O26qAjcBx8w) \- House of Heroes


End file.
